Dr Sharlene Thiagarajah: A force to be reckoned with

As the current Telekom Research & Development (TM R&D) chief executive officer, Dr Sharlene Thiagarajah has firm intention to serve Telekom Malaysia (TM) Group and help elevate the Malaysian innovation ecosystem.

With her vast experience in digital innovation and how she has transformed TM R&D under her leadership, it speaks volumes about what she can achieve in the next few years to come.

In just mere two years of holding the position as CEO, Dr Sharlene has transformed the organisation with almost 100% adoption of products and services, almost 18 times higher from 2012.

Malaysian Business Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with her to talk about her aspirations, challenges and success.

Clad in a beautiful tweed jacket paired with blue jeans and a pair of boots, Dr Sharlene greeted me with a warm smile and firm handshake. Her unconventional outfit choice and easy demeanor symbolises her unconventional leadership style which, I could only surmises, was why she has successfully managed to bring new technology and digital innovation into TM Group, with key focus to reduce cost of operations and to create new revenue opportunities beyond connectivity.

Dr Sharlene’s journey at Telekom started in 1995, where she was a fresh graduate filled with passion for research and development.

“For more than 20 years, I have served different areas of TM and I started with their research and development division. It’s quite refreshing to be back here and it truly feels like a full circle.”

“TM R&D was only incorporated as a company in 2001 and was set up to be an innovation hub for TM group where we support TM's vision to make life and business easier for a better Malaysia.

“Today, we are positioned as a key enabler to drive TM's digital aspirations as it moves beyond connectivity into new value-added digital and smart services, covering customer experience, process optimisation and new business opportunities,” Dr Sharlene explained.

Under her leadership, TM had launched their first digital collaboration platform in July 2018. The Open Innovation Platform (OIP) serves as the first building block for a new digital core for TM. This Open Innovation Platform allows for rapid prototyping of smart services, an API storefront where developers can consume or create new APIs and a service hosting platform.

Not only that, over the last two years she has also pushed TM R&D to win several international awards and their latest and biggest win was for 19th MSC Malaysia Asia Pacific ICT Awards (MSC Malaysia APICTA) for Innovation of their “Smart Safety Helmet”.

Right off the bat, Dr Sharlene attributes these success stories to the people working in TM R&D.

“We have 300 people and I cannot stress enough on how proud I am of them. It’s only with their hard work and vibrant energy that we managed to transform this organisation from a basic research centre into becoming a digital innovation centre of excellence all within two years.

“I’m a firm believer that only with the right people can we achieve great success,” said Dr Sharlene.

When Dr Sharlene was given the responsibilities to helm TM R&D, she was tasked to bring digital innovation to TM group.

Their measure of success quickly changed from how many research papers or patten they could produce in a year to how much significance their technology impact is to TM Group in terms of productivity, efficiency and cost avoidance.

“But TM group as a whole is really special to me, because there isn’t many companies or especially telcos (whether in the region or globally) that heavily invests in research and development.

“I know for a fact that research and development is the differentiator for any business because with the help of R&D, you can create and have your blend and special sauce. This is what will make you stand out in a sea of competitors.”

That being said, Dr Sharlene cannot deny that one of her biggest challenges was to get some of her stakeholders to believe in her aspirations.

“They need to believe R&D innovation is the key pillar for any organisation the ability to create and think beyond the box. These things require domain knowledge and expertise and cannot be solved in a day.”

Moving forward, Dr Sharlene intends to further publicise and promote on who TM R&D is and what they do.

“I would like to take my message outside of TM Group and bring our solutions to the market while increasing adoption beyond this group.

“This will hopefully give TM R&D the credibility to reach out and engage the national tech ecosystem. In that sense, we will be launching more products and solutions but I cannot reveal too much at the moment,” she said with a smile.

For now, Dr Sharlene will be busy rallying her outstanding team and get them to deliver the necessary results.

“But of course my team cannot just simply deliver the results, they must deliver it in style,” concluded Dr Sharlene.

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